Böcker av Adam Dumphy

Adobe days in the 30's, Navy days in the 40's, medical days of the 40's to 90's, writing days in the 2000's and a summation make up this offering. Adam Dumphy has sorted through these times and brought out what he feels is the spirit of his past in these little stories. Experiences unknown to others, especially those members of the present generation, seem important now and worth remembering and broadcasting. They represent the Sturm and Drang that complete the cycle of one man's life.

When is a kidnap not a kidnap or a train robbery not a train robbery? How does one prove paternity when conception occurred sixty years earlier on an Indian reservation with limited written records? How nearly can the human mind produce total recall if carefully questioned? How does one dispose of unwanted ill-gotten gains and remain under the radar of the IRS?Dr. Thomas McDuff has to untangle each of these puzzles.A retired physician and widowed he is the Certified Grouch of this series. Since his wife passed away he doesn't really care about anything very much. He actively dislikes other doctors, hospitals and Medical Schools. Add to the list: big cities, noisy crowds, short skirts, Linnaean taxonomy, anything cooked in olive oil or flavored with paprika. Almost anything can arouse his ire. Unfortunately for the good doctor a little gray man in a little gray office in the large gray building in the gray atmosphere of San Francisco knows his weakness, contention. If told firmly that the doctor cannot solve some puzzle his answer is "e;Any scheme devised by one man's mind can be penetrated by another's."e; And the old man will attack the problem forthwith. McDuff also does not know that the grey man's sign on the gray door of his gray office says, "e;Intercontinental Floral Transport Company"e;. And that it has little to do with flowers except an occasional funeral wreath. In addition he does not know that the old doctor's efforts, at no expense to the Company, reduces its dependence on 'endowments' from a very luxurious office in the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington D.C.

Even into the late 90's Pine Valley, a bucolic village in the mountains above San Diego, CA was a divided community. Not by race or religion but by propane vs electricity, piped in water vs a walk to the well, and septic vs outhouse.Responsible for the maintenance of all of these was Osh Oshman, the premier fixit man in the hill country. In his propane powered, ancient Ford truck he putts up and the down the dirt roads to keep his neighbors connected to the conveniences of modern living.His other attributes include baking the best bread anywhere, talent on the banjo, and a penchant for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now in his mid forties his recent marriage to his boyhood sweetheart has brought a dislocation in his life and his diet. The new little bride worrying about the longevity of her man, insists on organic, vegetarian meals and, a waitress only for a lifetime, as a cook the things she turned out often didn't turn out.When three outhouses in the area were rendered unusable by the deposition of a dead body in each, Osh reluctantly decides that it is his responsibility to stop this desecration of the time-honored edifices. With the aid of a Cocker Spaniel, reluctant courier of the bad guys, and a half-grown and half-tame mountain lion with a penchant for chasing motorcyclists, he investigates the deaths successfully.It requires a good deal of local knowledge but fixit men who are in an out of the backdoor of all the houses in the area when the owners are not at their best, know a lot about their neighbors, and common sense, while uncommon does bring results.

California through the late Spanish and early Mexican periods has been portrayed as an ideal existence in an ideal society, in an ideal climate. It has been called the Golden Age, the Gentle Land, the Time of the Bells. Supposedly the warm sun came up each morning bringing on a day of dining, drinking and dancing lasting for two or three days. Then a few days to rest and the start of a new celebration. The people were said to be large, well-formed and handsome with remarkable health and a long longevity. The women were dark eyed beauties and said to be very friendly. The men were caballeros in the very best sense of the word. The Priests were simple saints carrying a burden too heavy for an average man with patience and stability. The Indians were simple children entranced by the pageantry, music and bells while in the process of becoming adult enough that the land might be returned to them fertile and productive enough that the pervious days of semistarvation and constant tribal warfare were over. The economy, mainly beef, hides and tallow, were an ideal business for a people raised from childhood riding horseback. Money was so little regarded and so unnecessary that the bigger estates kept a bowl full of pesetas on a table in the hall so the guest might scoop up a handful when coming or going. Perhaps that is true but this portrayal seemed to the author to be unnatural, considering mankind being what they are. Adam Dumphy has tried to present a balanced account of those days as seen through the eyes of a fifteen year old sailor put ashore from a Boston trading brig as was the custom with a sailor too ill to pull his weight. He finds everything in San Diego of 1800 to 1801 strange and bizarre. But gradually learns of the people as human beings like himself and not as strange a society as reported. There is of course a gentle romance but that seems reasonable, as undoubtedly there was much of that sort of thing in those days also.

The U.S. Marines have never had need of a publicist. Still they have had many. None can compare with Col. J.W.T. Jr. When one of his books came out with his sketches the young ridge runners, North and South would come down out of the mountains by the droves to have their manes roached, hoofs trimmed and enlist.Colonel T. established the idealized example of them as hard drinking, hard fighting, hard living, and hard to kill. Of course he was speaking of the "e;Old Corps"e; which never existed except in fantasy. Still generations of Marines have tried to live up to this mold. The following fictional stories are of a little man who did just that.

Marriage by proxy was not uncommon in England during World War I. Couples separated by great distances and for long periods of time found comfort in this real if not physical sacrament. It did, however, lead to some unlikely unions.Among the Royals it was different. Victoria's numerous progeny were already checkerboarded by marriage across the length and breadth of Europe that all might continue to enjoy the privileges they were accustomed to. And their marriages for political or hereditary reasons had already produced many most unlikely couples such as a nice English girl wed to a cretin with a drool and vice versa.Also the dislocation of people and populations resulting from the war left the status of most royal families uncertain as to who were still alive and if they were still enjoying the royal life style.In an attempt to reestablish the age-old royal lines and royal prerogatives, proxy marriages were strongly encouraged by the Court.So it was that an English Viscount on a Grand Tour and caught behind enemy lines when the war began, simply assumed his other honorary position inherited from his grandfather, that of Colonel of the Second Regiment of the Swedish Christian Grenadiers and became a neutral and safe from internment.He, and a Duchess by birth, also a Countess by marriage and a "e;Lady"e; in England were united at long distance in the bonds, or perhaps the bondage, of matrimony to protect her under his neutrality.When they fictionally meet in a fictional Duchy on the Rhine a delicate situation results. It did not however interfere with their discovery and purloining of a German decoding machine for their country's Secret Service.And a happy marriage.

Little known to this day is the fact that the fate of France in the Phony War of 1939-40 was fought out as much in the salons of the 'Faubourg' as in the Chamber of Deputies or on the battlefields where there were no battles.Two women who could be called the mistresses of the most powerful men in the French government waged a savage war, jousting for power and position to the degree that the German menace was at times secondary. A pout might remove a minister from office; a smile determine his replacement; a tear determine national policy.These things are fact. In a from here on fictionalized account an elderly American experimenter in advanced wireless telegraphy is asked by British Intelligence to determine who is giving the Head of the French Government a great deal of bad information. With the aide of a renowned beauty of the haut monde, now however a convicted felon, he determines that the grandson of one of the mistresses is held captive by the Abwehr to force her to influence her man as they wish.In the attempt to rescue the child and get him out of the country the old man proves that even in this chaos of corruption, graft and outright treason there can also be follies in both senses of the word.

A story within a story, this is a romantic novel in the style of the 1940's, which means it is brief, simple, plausible and clean. The first protagonist, a Hessian Lt. with Burgoyne's Army at Saratoga in 1777, and an ancestor of the author, is sent with dispatches to General Cornwallis at Charleston. On a subsequent (fictional) trip his troop is ambushed carrying a British war chest of gold intended to equip Scottish Royalist troops in the Georgia hills. Although wounded he is not captured through the kindness of the then Mistress of the Fair Oaks Plantation who secrets him in a hidey-hole of the mansion.What subsequently happens to him is unknown until 1909 when his diary is found between the thick walls of the mansion intact and legible. Legible except that the last pages are written in some strange code and cannot be read.In 1946 Ab Andrus, the only Inheritance Investigator in the South is requested by the State of Georgia to make a formal statement as to the authenticity of the Diary.Like the Hessian he gets to know too warmly the current Mistress of Fair Oaks and both couples learn a great about themselves and each other in their contacts made in the search. One wins his lady and the other does not.